Yambiro Ecuador Project

NEWS UPDATE: The Yambiro Project drew a lucky raffle winner for the hand embroidered tapestry, on Monday, December 12TH. CONGRATUALTIONS to Ms. Powers, our tapestry winner. Thank you to all who entered the raffle. Thanks to your generous contributions, we raised nearly $70 to help send a young Yambiro girl to highschool.

BACKGROUND

The Yambiro Project is a partnership between the College of St. Benedict students and the Women's Cooperative in Otavalo, Ecuador. This non-profit project allows the women in the indigenous Yambiro community to be economically self-sufficient as they put their embroidering skills to use. The canvas bags that the women embroidered are sold at a price that covers the cost of the bags and the wages paid to the women, and goes toward a scholarship fund for the young children in the Yambiro community. This allows the women to provide their families with the necessities every individual deserves such as food and clothing. The scholarship fund allows deserving children in the Yambiro community to afford an education they would not have been able to pursue without financial support. If you are interested in donating to the Yambiro Project in order to purchase more materials for the Women's Cooperative, or toward the scholarship fund please complete the Donation Form on the right.

Current environmental issues: deforestation; soil erosion; desertification; water pollution; pollution from oil production wastes in ecologically sensitive areas of the Amazon Basin and Galapagos Islands

HISTORY

A group of CSB/SJU students - Jenny Birkhofer, Anna Kalmi, Emily Marks, Alisha Thill, and Zoua Yang - along with professors Patricia Bolanos and Luann Reif traveled to Otavalo, Ecuador in the summer of 2010. Before leaving on the trip, some of the group members raised money and collected donations to support the Yambiro community.

The group spent three weeks in Otavalo offering activities to the children such as sports, arts, and health. Some of them worked with the mothers of these children who are a part of the Women's Cooperative. The cooperative consists of 6 women who worked extremely hard to embroider 100 eco-friendly canvas within three weeks.

Before returning to the United States, some of the donations were used toward a playset which was created by a shop in Otavalo and transported to the Yambiro community - leaving something physical behind besides the memories.